Corruption is center stage right now. Fines against companies are counted in billions. Executives are extradited and imprisoned. President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, Attorney General Holder and their staffs address the corrosive impact of corruption in speeches at home and abroad in Accra, Nairobi and Doha.
Compensating the victims of corruption is a hot new topic. Restitution to victims is hard not to like. When public officials take bribes to buy shoddy goods at inflated prices, their citizens suffer. When food and drug officials take bribes to approve tainted or inert pharmaceutical products, their citizens suffer. And when government inspectors take bribes to avert their eyes from code violations, their citizens suffer. Compensating the citizens of corrupt governments is a compelling and attractive idea. But it's more complicated than it sounds.
Let's imagine a US company that has used bribery as a routine marketing strategy. They've done this in violation of US law and the laws of every country in which they operate. Instead of selling a good product at a competitive price, they've paid bribes to encourage government officials to buy their products in spite of quality or cost. In some cases, they've convinced government officials to buy products their countries don't need at all. What does compensation to the victims look like?
The company may be assessed a fine and told to pay that back to the people of China, for example, or Iraq, or Nigeria. How does that work? Is the check made payable to the Treasury? How is the money spent? How do we have any confidence that the money isn't promptly looted? Remember that the penalty has been assessed because the country in question had officials who sold themselves to the highest bidder and, presumably, that hasn't changed.
Some argue for monitoring of the funds, but the anti-bribery enforcement agencies don't have the staff or expertise for that. We want our enforcement agencies deterring and punishing crime, not overseeing a vast grant-making body managing victim restitution funds.
Of course the citizens of corrupt countries are the first and often most vulnerable victims of corrupt governments. But they aren't the only victims. When companies are made to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and remediation and have their reputations ravaged because their executives thought bribery was a good idea, the shareholders suffer. When competitor companies that don't bribe lose contracts to those that do, they're also victims.
Unlike almost any other international crime, everyone is a victim of corruption. Although bribery tends to be most prevalent in the least democratic countries, no community is immune. Bribes are paid to circumvent health and safety regulations, to avoid environmental standards, to sidestep customs and security at ports and airports, to encourage police to harass others or to ignore harassment, to buy doctors, judges, mayors, governors and dictators, UN officials and International Olympic Committees. The impact of bribery is global.
The US Department of Justice does not attempt to compensate victims of bribery. The UK Serious Fraud Office does. The US has been accused by some of making anti-bribery efforts a profit center. The UK, on the other hand, has declared that BAE Systems plc must pay a part of its recently assessed fine as a donation to Tanzania. Tanzania, where the then Attorney General has been implicated in the tainted deal. A donation to Tanzania. We'll see how that works out.
My question to her is what has a corporation like Daimler or Haliburton or BAE bought when they pay a bribe? If they did it to win a contract, will it be enforceable? Can they go to a court and say "I bought this deal and now I want you to help me hold the buyer accountable?"
We choose not to call it "bribery," though. We call it "lobbying" or "campaign contribution" or "corporate freedom of speech," all three terms simply being meant to sanctify the practice.
Over $4 billion (that's with a "B") a year is "contributed" to the approximately 650 members of Congress every year, by a group of over 4,000 people who shamelessly make it their "profession." And this, we well know, is only the tip of the iceberg.
The question for the American people (and for the world, really) is: "are you fed up with this yet?" "Do you want it to be different?" "Uh huh, how bad do you want it? Bad enough yet?"
Some people insist that a country gets what it deserves. But that's not true. A country gets the -worst- thing that its citizens will -tolerate.-
"The FCPA’s Antibribery provisions generally prohibit U.S. companies and citizens, foreign companies listed on a U.S. stock exchange, or any person acting while in the United States from corruptly paying or offering to pay, directly or indirectly, money or anything of value to a foreign official, a foreign political party or official, or a candidate for foreign political office for purposes of influencing any act or decision (including a decision not to act) of such official in his or her official capacity, inducing the official to do any act in violation of his or her lawful duty, or to secure any improper advantage in order to assist the payor in obtaining or retaining business for or with any person, or in directing business to any person."
http://www.fcpaenforcement.com/explained/explained.asp
When the same thing is done in the U.S., we call it legal campaign contributions.
Business owns the country.
Have you checked your local community college's funding lately? Business is buying education and pushing for training, rather than education. Just the latest inroad of the ownership class on its way to making a permanent class of serfs.
When business is the only value, Rome will burn. The Rome on the Potomac, that is.
In the past few decades, wealth, (which in our society translates into power) has become more and more concentrated to a smaller and smaller percentage of our peoples. It is now at record levels of disparity.
In the past few decades the United States has been falling in worldwide polls of the LEAST corrupt countries in the world. We no longer even make the cut for the top 10%.
I predict in November we will see the true power of money in action. The vast majority of incumbents will be re-elected. The money they have obtained from the "special interest" groups (while holding offices of public trust) will insure that outcome. The cycle of corruption will continue.
"An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought." (Simon Cameron) That was true in the 1800's, sadly, it remains true today. Nothing changes.
One of the dictionary definitions of corruption is, to decay, to fall into ruin. IMHO, it won't be a foreign power that eventually destroys our civilization. It will be the "corruption" that takes place from within.